Search form

‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ Tops 13th Annual VES Awards

Big Hero 6’ garners five awards; ‘Games of Thrones’ and SSE “Maya” lead in broadcast and commercial wins.

Los Angeles -- On Wednesday night the Visual Effects Society, the industry’s global professional honorary society, held the 13th Annual VES Awards, the prestigious yearly celebration that recognizes outstanding visual effects artistry and innovation in film, animation, television, commercials, video games and special venues. Comedian Patton Oswalt served as host to the more than 1000 guests gathered at the Beverly Hilton to celebrate VFX talent in 23 awards categories. 

Big Hero 6 was the big winner of the evening, garnering five awards. The teams from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (feature film), Games of Thrones (broadcast) and SSE “Maya” (commercial) led the wins in their respective categories, taking home three awards each.

Zoe Saldana made a crowd-pleasing presentation to her Star Trek: Into Darkness director, award-winning writer-director-producer J.J. Abrams, recipient of the VES Visionary Award. Awards presenters included Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou, Clark Gregg, How to Train Your Dragon 2 director Dean DeBlois, Alyssa Sutherland, Jamie Chung, Karine Vanasse and Scott Adsit.

Winners of the 13th Annual VES Awards are shown below:

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Joe Letteri, Ryan Stafford, Matt Kutcher, Dan Lemmon, Hannah Bianchini

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture

Birdman
Ara Khanikian, Ivy Agregan, Jake Braver, Isabelle Langlois

Outstanding Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

Big Hero 6
Don Hall, Chris Williams, Roy Conli, Zach Parrish

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Photoreal/Live Action Broadcast Program

Game of Thrones “The Children
Joe Bauer, Steve Kullback, Stuart Brisdon, Thomas Schelesny, Sven Martin

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Photoreal/Live Action Broadcast Program

American Horror Story: Freak Show “Edward Mordrake, Part 2
Jason Piccioni, Jason Spratt, Mike Kirylo, Justin Ball, Eric Roberts

Outstanding Real-Time Visuals in a Video Game

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
Yi-chao Sandy Lin-Chiang, Joseph Salud, Demetrius Leal, Dave Blizard

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Commercial

SSE Maya
Neil Davies, Alex Hammond, Jorge Montiel, Beth Vander

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project     

Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquee de Remy
Tony Apodaca, Marianne McLean, Gilles Martin, Edwin Chang, Mark Mine

Outstanding Performance of an Animated Character in a Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Caesar
Paul Story, Eteuati Tema, Andrea Merlo, Emiliano Padovani

Outstanding  Performance of an Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

Big Hero 6: Baymax
Colin Eckart, John Kahwaty, Zach Parrish, Zack Petroc

Outstanding Performance of an Animated Character in a Commercial, Broadcast Program, or Video Game

SSE: Maya
Jorge Montiel, Alex Hammond, Daniel Kmet, Philippe Moine

Outstanding Created Environment in a Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture

Interstellar: Tesseract
Tom Bracht, Graham Page, Thomas Døhlen, Kirsty Clark

Outstanding Created Environment in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

Big Hero 6: Into the Portal
Ralf Habel, David Hutchins, Michael Kaschalk, Olun Riley

Outstanding Created Environment in a Commercial, Broadcast Program, or Video Game

Game of Thrones: Braavos Establisher
Rene Borst, Christian Zilliken, Jan Burda, Steffen Metzner

Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in a Photoreal/Live Action Motion Media Project

X-Men: Days of Future Past: Kitchen Scene
Austin Bonang, Casey Schatz, Dennis Jones, Newton Thomas Sigel

Outstanding Models in any Motion Media Project

Big Hero 6: City of San Fransokyo
Brett Achorn, Minh Duong, Scott Watanabe, Larry Wu

Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture

X-Men: Days of Future Past: Quicksilver Pentagon Kitchen
Adam Paschke, Premamurti Paetsch, Sam Hancock, Timmy Lundin

Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

Big Hero 6
Henrik Falt, David Hutchins, Michael Kaschalk, John Kosnik

Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Commercial, Broadcast Program, or Video Game

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
Dominique Vidal, Isabelle Perin-Leduc, Sandrine Lurde, Alexandre Lerouge

Outstanding Compositing in a Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Christoph Salzmann, Florian Schroeder, Quentin Hema, Simone Riginelli

Outstanding Compositing in a Photoreal/Live Action Broadcast Program

Game of Thrones The Watchers on the Wall
Dan Breckwoldt, Martin Furman, Sophie Marfleet, Eric Andrusyszyn

Outstanding Compositing in a in a Photoreal/Live Action Commercial

SSE
Neil Davies, Leonardo Costa, Gianluca DiMarco

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project

Wrapped
Roman Kaelin, Falko Paeper, Florian Wittmann, Paolo Tamburrino

The Visual Effects Society is a professional honorary society dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences and applications of visual effects and to upholding the highest standards and procedures for the visual effects profession. It is the entertainment industry's only official organization representing the extended global community of visual effects practitioners, including supervisors, artists, producers, technology developers, educators and studio executives.  VES’ almost 3,000 members in 30+ countries worldwide contribute to all areas of entertainment – film, television, commercials, animation, music videos, games and new media.

Source: The Visual Effects Society

Jennifer Wolfe's picture

Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.